Drama Club

TWO ONE-ACT plays about an eccentric family will showcase the talents of North Carroll High School Drama Club with public performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the school. The Southern drama The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, and the comedic parody of it, For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls by Christopher Durang, revolve around the attraction held by the youngest family member for a collection of glass objects. The collection is practically the only decor for a family of three in a run-down apartment in Depression-era St. Louis.

When Jessica Case, 11, opened the chocolate bar she bought from a Liberty High School drama club fundraiser, she discovered — along with the candy — a golden ticket inside. "I jumped around and gave it to my mom," said Jessica, a sixth-grader at Sykesville Middle School. Just like the fabled golden tickets featured in the book, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," by Roald Dahl, Jessica's golden ticket, and four others hidden in chocolate bars sold by the drama club, provide winners with a chance to see Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

THE CLOCK IS ticking for members of the Northeast High School Dionysus Club. It is seven days until opening night for the drama group's latest production, Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap." Young actors are hard at work fine tuning lines and gestures, subtly bringing their characters to life. Other drama club members are busy behind the scenes, creating backdrops and props, getting ready to transform the Pasadena school stage into the snowbound Berkshire hotel where the murder mystery unfolds.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar — another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: SCATHING Those fine fellows the Vikings, after an interval of raiding and pillaging seaside villages in Britain, came to think that it would be simpler and just to conquer the territory, and so they did. They did eventually leave, but not without depositing some Old Norse words, like knife , in English.

MOUNT AIRY Elementary School Drama Club presented its first production, two short plays, Wednesday evening in the school auditorium. The first play, "The Little Clown Who Forgot How to Laugh," was about a colorful clown, played by Ian Maynes, who forgot how to laugh and who was afraid the circus wouldn't want him anymore. Children and several men and women try to make him laugh without success. The clown then meets a sad lost boy, and while trying to cheer him up, discovers the secret of laughing again.

IN THE TENSE psychological thriller "Night Watch," in production by the Drama Club at North Carroll High School, Elaine Wheeler's view from her luxury apartment is that of murder and suspicious visitors.What Elaine sees, those around her do not -- or do they? The whining and fears cascade from Elaine, who's believed to be mentally unstable, as she alienates her husband, psychiatrist, maid and local police."The audience never knows. Did she see it? You won't know, until the very end, what is the true story," said Tom Scanlan, play director.

The drama club at Westminster High School has undertaken a serious challenge.The students will present Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" at 7:30 p.m. today, tomorrow and Saturday in the school auditorium. The play is a drama set in France after its Revolution."The most difficult part is the French words," said Alice Tromble, an 18-year-old senior who plays Madame Thenardier, an innkeeper's wife. "All of us are having trouble with it.""I like the play a lot because it's a little bit like the musical but it's different," she said.

Because of an editing error, Hampstead businessman Seth Shipley was incorrectly identified as a town councilman in the Nov. 20 Carroll edition of The Sun.The Sun regrets the error.THE STAGE AT North Carroll High School has become a state mental hospital in the Pacific Northwest for the Drama Club's latest production, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."The drama is the story of the meekness of numerous long-term patients vs. the powerful compassion of the hospital's newest arrival, Randle P. McMurphy, played by Dave Hammond.

Lack of a stage didn't deter Sykesville Middle School students from mounting a production of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown."While the cast and chorus rehearsed, the children, with teacher Eric Conway, built a 16-foot by 16-foot portable, collapsible stage.The Drama Club hopes its first production -- on tap tonight and tomorrow at the school -- will lead to many more staged shows and enough profit to buy props for future endeavors.For the Charles M. Schulz musical based on the "Peanuts" comic strip, costumes came from most of the cast's closets and props were few."

"The Twelve Dancing Princesses," performed Friday and Saturday at North Carroll High School by members of the school's Drama Club, turns a fairy tale into an updated and engaging story of romance.This adaptation of a Brothers Grimm tale by playwright Richard Hellesen makes a very old story into something contemporary.It's all quite believable. Believable, of course, providing you accept a cloak that makes an ordinary boy invisible; a king who can't figure out what his 12 daughters are up to after bedtime; and a magic forest of jeweled trees with a dozen handsome, dancing princes.

The opening scene went something like this: Setting: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab building 17 cafeteria -- Fall 2009 Rocket Scientist #1: I do community theater. Rocket Scientist #2: I almost minored in theater in college. Rocket Scientist #1: Really? We should start a drama club here. Rocket Scientist #2: I'm in. Rocket Scientist #1: OK, good. For Big Science types at APL, tilting too far to their logical, self-controlled left brains could be hazardous. But that's less of an issue since the curtain was raised on the APL Drama Club by mission designer Chris Dong and fellow space department member Dawn Moessner, a mission design analyst.

Members of Liberty High School's Thespian Society are scheduled to perform J. Robert Wilkins' play, "War Letters," this week at the International Thespian Society Festival, Maryland Conference. The festival will be held Jan. 6-7 at Tuscarora High School in Frederick County. After those performances, the troupe will bring the show home to Liberty High School, Bartholow Road, Eldersburg, for performances Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Jan. 12, 13 and 14, at 7 p.m., with a special matinee show also on Jan. 14 at 2 p.m. "War Letters," depicts the story of a soldier on a peacekeeping mission overseas, and the ways in which his family deals with separation via letters.

He has performed on Broadway, in film and on TV. But when a decidedly amateur troupe at a Baltimore County elementary school invited him to work on their show, Eric Anthony jumped right in, eager to play mentor and share his talent — this time behind the scenes. Jamea Rice-Coleman had donned long brown dog ears for a lead role in "Let Sleeping Beauties Lie," Edmondson Heights Elementary's winter production. On stage, she easily mastered the charming side of Dogg, her canine character.

Concert Everclear at Recher Touring behind its first indepen dent label release in 14 years, Everclear is returning to its in die rock roots tonight at the Recher Theatre. Lead singer Art Alexakis boasts that he's written the "ultimate breakup song" on the album Welcome to the Drama Club. The show be gins at 7 p.m. at the Recher Theatre, 512 York Road. Tickets are $20. Call 410-337-7210, 410-547-SEAT or go to ticket master.com.

The Western Horizon Council and the Glenwood library will hold a free dinner and workshop for middle school pupils and their parents. "Hidden IM's, Chat Choices and Safe Surfing," is to run from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. May 24 at the library. The library is at 2350 Route 97 in Cooksville. Reservations (410-313-5577) are required for the dinner and workshop. Maryland State Police investigator Elliot Cohen will be the facilitator. The Western Horizon Council is an advisory group made up of people who live or work in western Howard.

The Glenwood library, 2350 Route 97, Cooksville, will present "Managing Your Well and Septic System" at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Representatives from the Howard County Health Department will speak. The library's Contemporary Fiction Book Club will discuss The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon, at 7 p.m. May 2. Library associate Lucie Pettis will lead the discussion. The Western Howard County Seniors Book Club will meet at 10 a.m. May 4. The group, made up for retired women, will discuss Wish You Well by David Baldacci.

The opening scene went something like this: Setting: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab building 17 cafeteria -- Fall 2009 Rocket Scientist #1: I do community theater. Rocket Scientist #2: I almost minored in theater in college. Rocket Scientist #1: Really? We should start a drama club here. Rocket Scientist #2: I'm in. Rocket Scientist #1: OK, good. For Big Science types at APL, tilting too far to their logical, self-controlled left brains could be hazardous. But that's less of an issue since the curtain was raised on the APL Drama Club by mission designer Chris Dong and fellow space department member Dawn Moessner, a mission design analyst.

Fifty years ago, a young girl died.This was not unique, given the time (Aug. 8, 1944) or the place (a nation occupied by the Nazis).Her name lives on, far longer than her short life.Anne Frank, age 16 at the time of her death, left behind, in the annex where she and her family had lived as refugees, a diary.That diary, found by the generous family who had cared for the Franks during their 2 1/2 -year ordeal, was later published by her father as "The Diary of Anne Frank."That diary was read worldwide, became a play and movie, and will play again in the Liberty High School auditorium Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.The play, a production of the Liberty High School Drama Club, will be performed in a simple set before an audience whose hands will be stamped with numbers in memory of the brands that marked prisoners in concentration camps.

There were only two days left before the big show at the Lake Clifton-Eastern High School complex, and things were not exactly as Christina Youngston would have liked them to be. The clock in the vast, seldom-used auditorium was frozen at 11:48. Only four of the stage lights were in working condition; the rest were bulbless, collecting dust on a shelf. There was still no sign of the microphones or costumes someone had agreed to provide for the show. But Youngston, the volunteer director of School No. 426's drama club, set aside those worries as her 15 actors gathered on the dimly lit stage to warm up. Together, they swung their arms, rolled their heads from side to side and blew raspberries to loosen their lips.

The Freedom Area Citizens' Council has canceled its meeting set for Thursday because scheduled guests cannot attend. The council will present its 2005 Freedom Area Priorities to the Carroll County commissioners at its January meeting. Information: 410-547-5982. Liberty High Drama Club to perform this weekend The Liberty High School Drama Club will present Class Acts at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the school auditorium at 5855 Bartholow Road, Eldersburg. Class Acts is a series of skits directed and performed by students.